The Now Show ploughs on in its pinko commie furrow, bringing us comedy through a hazy miasma of liberal good intentions supposedly the work of the comedy collective, the salt of the earth ploughmen, and wimmin, of comedy who till the fertile soil from which springs its virile and feculant offspring…the left-wing joke.
Apparently right-wing jokes just can’t exist in the rarefied atmosphere of the BBC….the hardy right-winger, having to be fed on a diet of truth and commonsense, just cannot survive on the naivety, high hopes, self-delusion and large quantities of pious, sanctimonious, smug, self-regarding morality/bullshit that the left-wing joke grows so vigourously in.
It’s true…the Now Show has given up pretending and admitted it is unremittingly and unapologetically left-wing (16 mins 50 secs). There are no right-wing jokes, it’s impossble to come up with any. They’ve strained their little minds and, no, no, the muse just doesn’t do jokes about the blessed Obama, the welfare state, immigration or the NHS…..evil bankers, Tescos and the Daily Mail not a problem.
The problem is compassion and humanity…the Right just doesn’t possess such virtues, allegedly, the Left of course claims to have them in spades….and they are vital ingredients in the nurturing of fine, organic, wholesome, worthy comedy. It is, we are told, just easier to express left-wing beliefs in the medium of comedy…presumably because they are so comic.
The end of the skit by Nish Kumar was a big hurrah for Jezza Corbyn along with the obligatory rant about capitalism, foodbanks and real banks. No wonder even Nish’s mum thinks he’s a boring little twat, derivative, unoriginal and cliched. I couldn’t possibly comment.
I can see why Kumar couldn’t find any material…the panic and horror as the realisation sets in at Labour HQ at the rise and rise of Corbyn after being promoted by Labour’s ‘morons’ has not the slightest comedy value, the likelihood of us heading back to the 70’s with the streets full of mountains of rubbish and dead bodies, with factories more often shut down by strike action than not, with 3 day weeks as the lights go out….no, nothing to make any satirical comments on there.
No comedy in the fact that people are fighting to get into capitalist Europe whilst they were fighting to get out of the left-wing paradise of the socialist Soviet Union?
No comedy in Labour’s attack on the government’s handling of immigration when it was Labour that opened the floodgates after lying through its teeth that only 13,000 immigrants would trickle across the border and millions turned up? No satire when Labour attack Cameron for using the word ‘swarm’ instead of having a coherent immigration policy of their own…no satire in the infamous lack of trust in politicians when the public sees such opportunistic gameplaying on a serious subject?
No comedy in Labour’s once Shadow-Chancellor now saying the Labour election economic policy was rubbish and unworkable? No comedy in just about every Labour politician denouncing Miliband and his manifesto after having backed it every inch of the way before?
No comedy in the fact that left-wing compassion for the poorest and under-privileged is a fallacy, a useful political illusion cynically employed to gull the most vulnerable in society when in fact all they are is cannon-fodder for the socialist elite, the Poor being a socialist petting zoo that makes the champagne socialists feel good about themselves and provides a jusitification for their own wealth and privilege…..look at what we do for you with all our wealth!….an ironic comedy construct in its own right…a socialist elite.
No comedy in the fact that it is the hated Right that in fact provides for the poorest by generating the jobs and wealth that gives them self-respect, money in their pockets and opportunity to fulfill their aspirations whilst the Left, that cares so much about the poor, prefers to keep them on a tight welfare leash, clients of the welfare state, ever dependent, grateful and grovelling for the handouts so generously provided by their socialist masters?
Here’s what that other favourite of the BBC, Stewart Lee, thinks about Right-wing comedy.…they shouldn’t do it…the Right has already won the world and comedy is for the under-privileged to use as a weapon against the powerful…
The African-American stand-up Chris Rock maintained that stand-up comedy should always be punching upwards. It’s a heroic little struggle. You can’t be a right-wing clown without some character caveat, some vulnerability, some obvious flaw. You’re on the right. You’ve already won. You have no tragedy. You’re punching down. You can be a right-wing comedy columnist, away from the public eye, a disembodied, authoritarian presence that doesn’t need to show doubt. Who could be on a stage, crowing about their victory and ridiculing those less fortunate than them without any sense of irony, shame or self-knowledge? That’s not a stand-up comedian. That’s just a cunt.
That’s the problem…people like Lee just see comedy as another tool in the Gramscian tool box to undermine and smash society and rebuild it into the Marxist utopia that they know can be achieved if only they can just get it right, this time. Maybe only a few million dead this time, higher walls, quicker firing machine guns, bigger gulags and a programme of road building in Siberia ought to do the trick.
The Socialist Paradise awaits. It’s a funny old world.
Stuart Lee’s ‘analysis’ of what constitutes a ‘cunt’ can be equally applied to any number of left wing champagne socialists – assorted Hollywood glitterati, multimillionaires who insist on using their fame to propagate hypocritical twaddle about climate change: everyone from George Clooney to James Cameron (both men who are unimaginable wealthy) lecturing the plebs on how they should be doing more to ‘save the planet’ whilst cynically maxing out their own ‘carbon footprints’ many times over in pursuit of their fabulous pay days.
Lee’s failure to identify the comedy of the right is a telling failure of his own imagination. There is humour to be found in equal measure on all sides of the political spectrum, but if one’s mind is hopelessly locked into one particular world-view, one overarching doctrine… Well, we end with the intellectual travesty of someone like Lee announcing to the world that in his view ‘right wing comedy is dead’ and anyone who might want to try it out is therefore just a cunt.
Meanwhile fantastically rich left liberal progressives living pampered lifestyles dripping with sneering hypocrisy continue to advise the world’s poor that, in their lofty view, it would be best for ‘Gaia’ if those most in need of it were denied the benefits of a low-cost, secure fossil fuel economy.
So funny, you can’t even make it up. Or perhaps I’m just being a cunt?
Is it the classic chicken and egg problem?
You do not get invited to suckle at the BBC’s generous teat unless you are on the approved list of comic “talent”, so rather like most climate change scientists, you do not bite the hand that feeds you.
The 15 Minute Musical programmes of a year or two ago did seem to manage a reasonable level of “equality” – so it can be done.
What a set of scruffy bastards!
I believe you have to conform to the left wing comedic talent stereotype.
The days of wearing a D/j for radio are long gone!
😉
Maybe they are too poor to afford smart clothes ? But don’t they look macho !!!!
A colleague reports something noted written on the back of a white van man Transit this morning.
“WORK HARDER. Millions on benefits are depending on you!”
I do not think he will get a job as a “joke” writer for the BBC – do you?
Not trying to hog the thread, but regarding jokes about Jeremy Corbyn I believe that he has developed quite a following among the young.
That is those not old enough to have actually lived through the wonderful years of the 70s, to which he seems keen to return us.
Most BBC comedic talent would also not appear to have been anywhere near adulthood pre-Thatcher, which may explain much.
Younger generations dependent on the BBC for their historical and political perspective will be blissfully unaware of the horrors of 1970s union-governed Britain. It is just one of the many inconvenient truths the BBC has quietly dispatched down its Memory Hole in order to sustain a particular world view for its largely unsuspecting audience.
Exactly so! This is the great damage that has been done to the UK by the BBC. They have brainwashed a high proportion of a couple of generations into believing their leftist world view, in which Britain and the West, are responsible for all manner of crimes and which no sensible, tolerant ,compassionate person should wish to be associated with.
The BBC audience, like the electorate of the Former UK, with a few notable exceptions, are always largely “unsuspecting” because they are gullible, and are incapable of thinking for themselves, preferring instead to be spoon fed shallow, witless trash by the BBC (and other channels, for that matter.)
I’ve just looked at Pat Condell’s video that was posted on another thread about “progressive comedians”
What I hate most about this term “progressive”, that the left has suddenly usurped from the language is the dishonesty. Whether it is the brutality of the gulags or the Orwellian thought police of today’s socialism, there is nothing remotely progressive about the left. If it wasn’t so destructive it would be hilarious to watch the antics of “progressive” comedians and their audiences, who in their vanity believe themselves to be so free thinking and well, progressive. In reality they are simply kow-towing to a worn-out philosophy that has nothing to offer but crushing authoritarianism.
I’m not sure what your idea of ‘suddenly’ is but the word ‘progressive’ to describe political ideas can be traced as far back as at least 1620 !
Reactionary – it’s erstwhile counterpart has its roots in the French revolution around 1800.
Both Eugenics and Fascism, were both at the time early in the 20th century seen as ‘progressive’.
None of them can beat Dave Allen , not one foul word but could have tears of laughter running down your face in minutes.
There’s an absolute goldmine of comedy in taking the piss out of Political Correctness and Left wing angst, hand wringing, authoritarianism, and the false equality they peddle.
True Mallard.
Perhaps the BBC could educate these young people by showing a program about “Life in a Mid 20th Century Socialist Britain”. Where a weak Tory government was ousted by constant strikes, power cuts and folk working only three days a week. They could show scenes of drinkers in pubs surrounded by hurricane lamps and candles, drinking beer out of bottles since the electrically operated beer pumps wouldn’t work (Oh happy days, I can still smell the paraffin!) Hospitals having to install electric generators, due to the unreliable supply of electricity. (This could be life under the Greens)
Then we got socialist governments with constant strikes, a winter of discontent, hospitals picketed, green goddess military fire engines, piles of rubbish in the streets, bodies unburied.
Then along came a government headed by a PM with guts who confronted the leftards and Marxist Union leaders, intent on destroying industry, and backed by a police force which would get stuck in and confront rioters and violent pickets without fleeing.
Oh how the left squirmed, but they had the backing of the silent majority. They could do a repeat of the labour party conference during the miner’s strike. That should lose the left more votes.
And the irony was that the new PM was a woman! Oh the angst!
Lee’s diatribe in fact nicely summarises the BBC’s authoritarian attitude to ‘comedy’. What an unwitting revelation that is.
And Alan says: ‘There are no right-wing jokes, it’s impossble to come up with any. They’ve strained their little minds and, no, no, the muse just doesn’t do jokes about the blessed Obama, the welfare state, immigration or the NHS…’
In reality there is so much material for a Bob Monkhouse-sized compendium of jokes and satire in the leftist political/activist sphere – genuinely funny and surreal stuff – it would keep a right-wing version of The Now Show going for centuries.
Instead the likes of The Green Party, Islam, Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond, the unions, anything to do with immigration, anything to do with Labour’s economic record (‘no more boom and bust’ anyone?), ‘climate change’ etc etc are absolutely beyond criticism or satire. It is a form of censorship and it simply should not be happening a) in a healthy democracy and b) at the BBC, a national broadcaster which is allegedly ‘impartial’ and which has a very unhealthy 70% share of media coverage in this country.
I watched a documentary about Churchill with Hugh Dennis presenting. I must admit I didn’t know who he was until my wife told me he was a ‘comedian’ on the BBC. The programme wasn’t on the BBC, it was on some other channel. Anyway Mr Dennis came across as quite sympathetic to Churchill . The main impact of PC on the programme was that almost all of the people asked about Churchill were ethnics, but they were positive about him .
What I wonder is, if these folks were given freedom to say what they liked , which of course they don’t get on the BBC, would we get a more balanced view with the left being the subject of as many jibes as the right? If so, then yet another good example of the BBC pushing its own leftist agenda.
Genuine question.
Can anyone name a ‘right wing’ comedian.
I’d like to see one but don’t know of any.
Jim Davidson. And yes, he is just as politically incorrect and hillarious as ever. Also there is a young up and coming comedian who used to appear on the BBC, but I have not seen him on TV for quite a while. His name is Andrew Lawrence and his tweets are anything but left wing… Which is probably why I have not seen him on the BBC anymore.
Jim Davidson appeared at one of our local theatres a few years ago. A group of about 20 left wing hecklers were in the audience who were so disruptive Davidson had to abandon his act. Plod were called but did nothing.
Little wonder there are no right-wing comedians in this country when they can be hounded out so easily by the fascist Left.
I’m afraid it’s at the stage that people will have to take matters into their own hands. I’m betting Plod would suddenly have decided to make some arrests then. But likely not the original disruptors who appear to have some sort of immunity.
Andrew Lawrence is a Right wing comedian worthy of note. Last year he called out his fellow comedians about their anti UKIP routines and how every BBC quiz/panel show has to have enforced female and ethnic quotas regardless of talent.
Hopefully you’ll remember the established “talent” went for him big time but he never caved to the vitriol of the left wing Twitter hive mind thought police and stood his ground in a way I found inspirational.
The flak is always heaviest when you’re over the target. He bravely held a mirror up to them and they didn’t like it one bit.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11196679/Ukip-As-a-black-female-comedian-I-do-loathe-the-party.-Promise….html
Yes thoughtful, of course the term progressive has been used and misused for centuries, but you can’t help but have noticed how it has suddenly reappeared in the text of the left in recent months. It’s one of those words like “diversity” that has more to do with political spin and deflection than anything that exists
in the real world.
Just add ‘sustainable’ and ‘social justice’ and – hey presto! – you’ve got Agenda 21, the manifesto of an insidious network of leftists from the IPCC through Friends of the Earth to Common Purpose who are increasingly governing our lives from energy to immigration.
Alan, this is a good piece. Well done.
It should be published in the Guardian or the Independent or, even better, the Guardian AND the Independent.
I bet they wouldn’t have the guts to do it . . . . .
I do think I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue is genuinely funny and it generally avoids politics. I detect efforts by the BBC to bring it into the fold – for instance yesterday one sketch was reporting historic events as if by the Daily Mail (the Guardian would have been far funnier but that would be a step too far) – but on the whole it steers clear.
I did not manage to get in when it was recorded locally, but believe there is an element of “scripting” for other than just the Chairman’s words nowadays.
Anyone been lucky enough to see it recently and can advise.
Jack Dee a worthy successor to Humph, and reputedly not particularly sympathetic to the “left”.
I doubt whether there is actual scripting, although I expect they are told the questions in advance and the programme is edited before broadcast. I may well be wrong – I was quite surprised to learn that Blind Date contestants had their answers written out for them – thus taking away any spontaneity or indeed honesty from the show. (From someone who took part.)
Often cited as a Right Wing comedian is Pub Landlord aka Al Murray.
But he is in fact very left wing and uses the guise of an outspoken English nationalist to poke fun at the right.
He never takes the pi** out of non-whites. He sticks with the USA, Europeans and native Brits for his material.
I saw him live a couple of years ago and he tried some new material on the audience. It comprised comparisons between the Taliban and his character’s views on women. For example, women had to know their place, be seen and not heard and not be allowed to drive. It fell very flat.
And he also stood against Farage in the General Election, apparently sponsored by the BBC.
..
The “comedians” who appear week after week on the BBC are by definition “establishment comedians”. They are not progressive, edgey or alternative; they are the establishment. To revert to a catch phrase of Hale & Pace; they speak for “the Management”.
It must be remembered that Al Murray first started his pub landlord routine on the Now show.
Wife just informed me that she has tickets to see Katie Hopkins at the end of this month.
She could qualify as Right Wing??
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/alan-sugar-tells-katie-hopkins-to-shut-up-after-columnists-controversial-cilla-black-tweets-10434289.html
..
Well I’ve learned something from this blog .
The Now Show is supposed to be a comedy !
AliBaba Telly does ‘not do’ comedy.
It hasn’t done for over twenty years.
Michael MacIntyre seems fairly apolitical to me but you don’t see much of him on the BBC.
WTF???!!!
When the leftards say that the right-wing has no humour/humourists, this is too funny for words.
The internet is alive with examples of r-wing jokes about left-wing hypocrisy/Champagne socialists/perversions. The Liebore Islingtonite middle-class leadership ,aided by its useful idiot junior brigade in academia/trade unions/NHS/LocalAuthorities are a CONSTANT source of jokes for the rest of us.
And its EXTREME branch ,as personified by Jeremy C and Ken L ,are a complete laughing stock to most of the country.
Completely agree with you Conan, some of the unintentional clowns on the left are just crying out to be parodied and satirised – Galloway, Livingstone, little Owen Jones etc., etc. That list might include one or two rather vocal Muslims, but of course that would be racist.
So it’s not that there is any lack of material, just more of the same BBC propaganda machine.